


If You Let Me Down, Let Me Down Slow

by CyborgShepard



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drunken Shenanigans, F/F, Humor, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-15 20:46:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13621362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyborgShepard/pseuds/CyborgShepard
Summary: “It’s a quarter past three in the morning.”“I know,” Moira says, placatingly. She holds up one hand. The other is stuck between her chest and the sill.Angela sniffs. “Are you drunk?”Moira levels her with a look. She musters up the firmest expression she can. “I am.”Angela nods, and rubs her eyes closed. And when she opens them Moira is still, from the torso up, dangling half her body through her third-floor apartment window.





	If You Let Me Down, Let Me Down Slow

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day! Attempted crack, attempted fluff, and written for the Moicy discord's Valentine's event. The prompts were flowers, surprise kiss, soulmates, morning cuddles, promise, reversed roles, and chocolate, but I combined them all into one story. Have fun finding them!

“I’m only here to establish an alibi,” she thinks she hears her say, but honestly Angela’s ears feel like they’re stuffed with wool and her eyes are barely open. “I can explain.”

The microwave clock winks at her from the kitchenette, little sticks of neon green that almost blast her away when Angela looks in its direction. She warily peers back at the window. “It’s a quarter past three in the morning.”

“I know,” Moira says, placatingly. She holds up one hand. The other is stuck between her chest and the sill.  

Angela sniffs. “Are you drunk?”

Moira levels her with a look. She musters up the firmest expression she can. “I am.”

Alright. Okay. Angela nods, and rubs her eyes closed. And when she opens them Moira is still, from the torso up, dangling half her body through her third-floor apartment window.

 _Shit_ , Angela thinks, scrunching her nose.

“Please don’t call the police,” Moira whispers. She starts to wriggle desperately, her right hand grappling for purchase on the very nice, very expensive hand woven rug that Fareeha’s mother bought for her last birthday. “I know this is very unconventional, but you see, Angie--” she makes a fist and tugs and Angela watches the tall lamp in the corner wobble precariously, “--No one would ever think to find me _here._ ”  

The coffee table shakes, a pen rolls lazily onto the rumpled rug. But Moira’s still stuck.

“If it’s an alibi you need, no one will believe that you _were_ here,” Angela retorts with a frown. Moira opens her mouth. And promptly shuts it. 

“You needed my help.”

“ _I_ needed _your_ help?”

“Yes, with... a project.”

“At three in the morning?”

Moira’s eyes glint. “It’s _due_ tomorrow.”

Angela raises a thin eyebrow. “You needed help with _your_ project.” She folds her arms over her chest. “And you left it til last minute, that's why your here at this damned hour. Let's go with that, if anyone asks. It's more believable.”

Moira blows a loose tuft of hair from out of her odd-coloured eyes and grouses. “I suppose.”

“But truthfully, you also need help with…” Angela waves a hand in Moira’s general, dishevelled direction. She’d look like some kind of one-armed, half-bodied monster if it wasn’t for the glowing moon and the street lights below backlighting her. 

“I was doing quite well until you lunged into the room and _startled_ me. Now the window’s stuck,” Moira explains, as if Angela’s the one at fault.

“Sorry I interrupted your grand entrance,” Angela scoffs, “I’m usually much more calm when I wake up to the calamity of someone breaking into my apartment.” But she makes her away around the off-centre coffee table and flicks the lamp on anyway. She briefly assess the situation before rolling up the sleeves on her pyjama shirt.

“Alright, I’ll work the window up, you pull your other arm through and then pull yourself in.” 

She grips the frame firmly, either side of Moira’s ribs, and wriggles the old thing up. It rained today, or- yesterday, rather, and that’s probably why it’s being so fickle. Moira winces as she rolls her shoulder forward and tugs her limp left arm through. She’s holding something in a vice-like grip, but what exactly escapes Angela at that moment. 

“Almost got it,” Angela hisses, wishing she’d accompany Fareeha to the gym more often. She huffs, and with sleep-stiff arms pulls as hard as she can. The window scrapes as it slides up a feeble few inches, but it’s enough. 

Moira yelps, and promptly starts to slip backwards.

Angela gasps and lunges forward, but the window is still in her grip. “Moira!”

Two long arms wrap around her waist and hold her so tight she almost topples over. “Angie,” Moira weeps. “Don’t- don’t let me fall. Please, I promise I won’t harass you in class, I’ll give you back your microscope, and I’ll ask Olivia to stop tracking all your social media accounts!”

“Just hold on, I’ll pull--” Angela gasps. “Wait, _you_ took my microscope?!”

Moira’s boots scrape against the brick wall as she scrambles to push herself up. “I promise it’s in excellent condition! Somehow mine didn’t survive the experiment with the radiation and all I needed was to examine some slides and--”

Angela grits her teeth and takes an angry step backwards, and then another, and another, and then at least four-fifths of Moira’s insolent form have been fed through the window. 

Her stupidly long foot knocks against the glass. There’s a gasp, and then the sound of something hitting the bitumen and echoing in the empty, wet street below, and Moira whimpers. “My shoe.” 

Angela rolls her eyes and pointedly lets go of the window to pry Moira’s noodle-like arms from off her. “I’m sure you have plenty more.”

She stands with her weight on her leg and a hand on her hip. Moira looks up at her from where she’s crumpled on the floor, one nice shiny black boot on one foot, a garish purple sock adorned with rabbits on the other. 

And a soggy bundle of familiar pink flowers from the garden of Miss Zhou’s ground floor apartment wilting by her left hand.

Moira’s eyes dart around nervously, and Angela huffs.

"So. Are you going to tell me why you need an alibi?”

Moira pouts, and attempts to smooth back her unruly hair. It hangs in curls around her ears, where the weather has tousled it. “I have my reasons.”

“You said you’d explain. And _I_ have painkillers for that behemoth of a headache you’ll be nursing soon, so...”

She thinks Moira grouches something about _holding her alcohol_ but Angela isn’t listening, just turning and ducking into the kitchen instead. Her refrigerator is depressingly barren, but the cupboard above holds a bag of crisps pilfered from one of Gabe’s parties, and a semi-melted chocolate bar from a midnight tryst to the gas station down the street. Angela fixes up two glasses of water and roots through the med kit for anything ending in - _deine._ By the time she’s turned back to the living room Moira has perched herself on the recliner with the flowers in her lap, eyes fixed on the door to Fareeha’s room, and it’s then that Angela notices the nice dress shirt she’s wearing and the way the top three buttons are undone. 

“What’s wrong? Nothing clever to snark?” Angela sits on the opposite, mismatched recliner, and slides both waters across the wonky coffee table.

 She doesn’t miss the way Moira anxiously licks her lips. She fixes Angela with a strange look. “Is- Is she here?” 

“Who? 

Moira gives her a _look._ “Amari,” she hisses, then shudders like even whispering is too loud.

“Why does it matter?” When Moira doesn’t answer, Angela shakes her head. “She’s not here, as far as I know. She had something on.”

Moira gives her a funny look but Angela doesn’t bother to dissect it. It seems Moira’s capability for relevant speech is slowly fading, and she doesn’t want to waste what time she has. 

“But you are. And because…?”

Moira leans back a little in the ugly, plush chair. She kicks her shoe against the rumpled rug. “I was running away from a date.”

Angela purses her lips, and pointedly stares directly at Moira, steeling her expression of _completely unaffected and unbothered because she doesn’t care that Moira had a date, why would she care that Moira went on a-_

“Oh.” Angela says easily. “Why?” She opens the bag of crisps, and crunches on one loudly.  

Moira shifts, thumbing the crinkly foil of the chocolate bar. “Liv set me up with her, and she… well. Dinner was nice. Drinks at the bar was even better. But then she wanted to…” Angela’s eyes flick down, to Moira’s unbuttoned shirt, up to her flushed cheeks. “I don’t know. Leaving her on the dance floor to go to the bathroom and then making my escape seemed much easier than that conversation.”

“You know you’ll just have to have it tomorrow, right? Wouldn’t it have been convenient to use being drunk as an excuse than telling her the truth?” 

“The truth?” Moira asks, before taking healthy sip of her water.

“Yes,” Angela says, shrugging. “That you’re not into her.”

“Aren’t I?”

“I don’t know.” Angela blushes furiously. “Why would you be _here_ if you were?”

Now something creeps along the tops of Moira’s cheeks, red and soft and making her faint freckles glow. She mumbles into her glass, then goes for the second one and fumbles with the foil packaging of the painkillers. 

Angela pinches the bridge of her nose, and offers Moira the bag of chips. “Well, you’re here now, and soon you’ll be giving _me_ a headache. As you can see we don’t have a couch.” Angela stands up, chin high and eyes clear. She holds herself well for a woman wearing only her pyjamas. “If you’re planning on staying the night, you’ll have to sleep with me.”

Alarms blare in her head. Moira’s looking at her with eyes the size of planets and an incredulous little _o_ on her mouth. _Shit. No! Not_ \- _no, ew!_ Better Angela yells in her head. “I meant we’ll be _bunking,_ ” she spits angrily, refusing to look anywhere but Moira’s shocked face. Unfortunately, her stubbornness means she’s privy to the delicious flush crawling down Moira’s long neck and down her pale chest, til it disappears beneath the edge of her shirt.

“That’s, um-” Moira starts. Swallows. “Fareeha won’t mind?”

Angela rolls her eyes. “Why _would_ she? It’s not like she owns me.”

Honestly. She’d forgotten how _weird_ Moira was. Turning on her heel and heading into her room Angela rummages around for a spare shirt and flannel bottoms, muttering angrily about microscopes and academic rivalries and undone buttons. 

It’s not that they hate each other. Hate is such a _strong_ word. It’s more that, in any given interaction, Moira will do everything in her power to absolutely drive Angela to madness, as if that is her one true purpose in this world. Angela grimaces. She’s going to have her medical licence revoked before she even _graduates,_ simply because of how much _drama_ Moira drags her into. 

Like this. 

She scrunches up the shirt in her hands, merch from Gabe’s failed band. That poor girl, she thinks, stalking from the room, being stood up on tonight of all nights. And now _she’s_ an accomplice in all of this, and while she’s sure Moira doesn’t feel guilty Angela definitely does, because she’s a _good person._  

Something clatters in the kitchen, she hears the chink of a glass, but Angela pointedly does not look. There's only so much nonsense she can handle in one interaction with Moira O'Deorain. 

“Here,” she says mildly, leaving the clothes on the recliner, before turning to her room. She doesn’t make it far before Moira is gasping loudly.

“What is it now?”

Moira’s holding the shirt at arm’s length and staring it down incredulously. “I own this shirt,” she whispers. Angela squints.

“No, it’s definitely mine. Look at the sizing. You fit mens.”

“How would you know?”

Angela splutters. “It’s not yours!” she decides indignantly.  “We all probably have one of those shirts. Jesse no doubt gave every person from campus one of those stupid things.”

“Maybe,” Moira says, and Angela gets the distinct feeling she’s talking to the shirt, “Maybe I was meant to come here tonight. Maybe this is _fate._ ”

“What, like because we both have the same shirt we’re _soulmates_ or something?” 

Oh, God, what is she saying? Angela glares at a very interesting mark on the farthest wall away from Moira, but Moira says nothing, just starts to undress _even though she’s still right there,_ and Angela decides she’s just very, very tired and very, very delirious. Moira is drunk, absolutely smashed, talking to a t-shirt wearing only her bra and skinny jeans from before 2007, and Angela finally turns back to the room. She switches the lights off and slips under the covers, flat on her back, hands by her sides.

Silence.

And it’s then that her phone starts a little trill of chimes and pops, and rattles violently against her bedside table.

Angela growls, hastily unlocking it to find a thread of texts from several different people.

The most recent one is from Genji.

03:24 >> _hey, weird question but have you seen Moira??_ _  
_ >> _wait, why would you know. Urgh sorry hopefully this didn’t wake you_

03:28 >> _I've just been informed that_ _Moira is drunk_  
>> _please please tell me you know where she is  
_           >> _no one is safe!!!!_  

Angela holds her mobile so tight it might crack. She types with her index finger, jabbing the screen so hard it’s a surprise she isn’t wearing the phone like a ring.

03:29 << _She is currently at my apartment. I am helping her with her school work  
_           << _:-)_

“Angela?”

Angela’s phone clatters back on the desk. “What now?” 

In the dim she can barely make out Moira standing in the doorway, but she’s there, shifting awkwardly, the disproportionally large _Talon_ logo emblazoned in garish fucsia across her chest. Soft light from the street manages to filter up under the curtains. It catches in Moira’s eyes. 

“I, um. Are you sure this is okay?” 

Angela doesn’t deign her with a response, only holds one side of the duvet up pointedly. For some irrelevant reason she’s keenly aware of the steps Moira takes across the carpet, of how many little breaths she sucks in that time. 

There’s a very apparent pause, then a very distinct weight dipping the bed down in a way nothing beside herself ever has before. There’s a certain type of warmth, that only comes from having someone else in your space. Not that Angela knows much of that. 

And then Moira is awkwardly hanging off the side of her bed. Angela shuffles until her back is against the wall.

There’s only one pillow. Angela pretends they aren't sharing it.

“Why is your bed a single?” is what Moira asks to break the tension. Angela frowns.

“I don’t know. Why would I need a bigger bed?”

Moira starts to say something but then shakes her head, and shuts up. Thank God.

Angela buries her face in her pillow and screws her eyes shut. She just has to fall asleep, and then morning will come quickly, and she can boot Moira out of her room. Then all her stupid drama will be her own to deal with, and Angela will take her breakfast and study and maybe dwell a little on the way Moira looks at her when she’s drunk, and then, she will blissfully forget all of this.

There's silence.

Then--

“Are you _sure_ Fareeha won’t mind this?”

Always her _incessant_ preoccupation with her roomate. For some reason she sounds quiet, unsure, not as cocky as she _always_ does when she opens her mouth. But Angela doesn’t focus on that.

Instead she gives an exasperated, exaggerated sigh and stares at the side of Moira’s head. “Why _would_ she?”

Moira sucks a breath between her teeth, and scoffs. Bitterly, no less. “Don’t be dumb, Angela. Because she’s your blasted girlfriend. Because you're in love with  _her._ And I can’t imagine she’d be enthusiastically encouraging you to share your bed with your mortal _enemy_.” 

Her chest is rising and falling rapidly. Angela can’t see well in the dim, but she thinks Moira’s cheeks are bright red. Her dark eyes are open, staring at the ceiling. 

Angela licks her lips. Her words are slow and cumbersome, like her brain knows she should just stay quiet but her mouth won’t let her. “I’m confused. Fareeha and I aren’t together.” Moira’s gel-sticky hair tickles her cheek. “And you and I aren’t… mortal enemies, or whatever.” 

A strange laugh bubbles up from Moira’s chest. “What?!” She rolls over onto her side now, facing Angela. “You and Fareeha have been together since like, high school. _Everyone_ knows that.” 

Angela huffs a laugh. “Yeah, as like, best friends. You idiot.”

Moira gapes at her. “No way. Olivia said--”

“Why would you trust her?”

“Fair point,” Moira cedes. There’s something soft to her voice now, and barely any space between them.

“And you’re not my enemy, either. You’re just annoying.”  

“But you don’t hate me?”

Angela makes a noise. “Give me back my microscope, then we’ll see.”

But Moira isn’t listening. Angela can tell she’s staring at her. She can feel the warm, soft little breaths Moira’s taking. She smells like bourbon. Angela doesn’t mind.

“This changes everything,” Moira says quietly, to herself. 

Angela swallows. She knows… she knows she should just go to sleep, and keep her mouth shut, and most importantly away from Moira. That’s what sensible Angela Ziegler would do, she reminds herself. Better Angela has always locked down any stray thoughts, especially ones about Moira. About Moira’s gentle, large hands, and her thin lips, and her pretty kaleidoscope eyes. Moira is _handsome,_ and half the women at their university are in love with her. But not her, she reminds herself.

Feebly.

Desperately. 

As her hand somehow, strangely, finds itself resting on the shell of Moira’s hip.

And then she’s saying, “Come here,” and she’s rolling her over, shimmying forward, til her chest is flush with Moira’s back. Til her arm hangs loosely over the side of her ribs. “You’re too big for this bed.”

 “Oh,” Moira breathes. Angela thinks she can feel her heartbeat rattling her bones. “Yes. I’m six-foot-five, you know.”

Angela rolls her eyes. “I’m well aware.”

“Okay,” Moira says, and sucks a sharp breath through her teeth when Angela settles against her.

She pushes her nose against Moira’s hair. She smells like smoke and alcohol and perfume, and the muskiness of the hair gel. She feels unbelievably unreal in her arms.

“Go to sleep, Moira.”

“Okay.”

 

Angela wakes with the morning sun spearing beneath a gap in the curtains and hitting her right in the face. She blinks lazily for a moment, only to find a shock of tousled red hair under her nose. She’s confused for only a second before she remembers _everything,_ and she shudders, and is about to push Moira off her when--

A soft, sleepy kiss presses against Angela’s throat. 

And then another.

And Moira mumbles against her neck.

And Angela decides maybe this isn’t so bad.

So she closes her eyes, and goes back to sleep.

 

It’s eight-thirty when Angela fully extracts herself from her bed, or at least, that’s what her phone told her. Along with approximately twenty messages trying to discern the location of Moira O’Deorain.

“I don’t know,” Angela yawns, curling into her pillow. “She was here last night, I helped her with the stuff for bio.”

“ _Was_?” Gabe says forlornly, voice tinny. He’s probably been up all night.

Angela winces in sympathy. “She was gone when I woke up. But I’m sure she’s fine.”

“ _I_ _don’t care about_ her _welfare. I care about my own. She stood up Amelie Lacroix and now she’s pissed at me and--_ ”

“Wait,” Angela gasps, sitting bolt upright in her bed. “Moira blew off Amelie _Lacroix_?”

A little voice in her head says, _for me._

" _On Valentine's Day, no less!_ "

Angela can't help it. An incredulous little laugh bubbles from her chest, and she smiles.

“ _No,_ ” laughs Gabe, but in a different way. “ _No, no no. It’s not funny._ ”

"Moira is _so_ not in her league, though!”

“ _Exactly!_ ”

“Oh,” Angela says gently, still smiling, “oh, Gabe, you’re in for a world of suffering.”

Actually, maybe Gabe isn’t laughing. Maybe he’s weeping. “ _I_ _’m aware._ ”

Her _Talon_ shirt glares at her from the floor, where it’s been discarded with her flannel pants in a messy heap. Angela pads out to the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “You know, I heard she’s in love with Lena, anyway, has been for years. Lacroix will get over it; she likes a certain type of person. She and Moira wouldn’t have worked out anyway.”

“ _How do_ you _know Moira isn’t a ‘certain type of person’?_ ” 

Angela almost trips over the rumbled rug, because she’s too busy staring at the coffee table incredulously. Half of the chocolate bar has been left for her. In one of the glasses of water sits the bunch of hand picked flowers. Camellias, pretty and pink and soft in the morning sun.

It’s weighing down a rumpled piece of paper, bearing a string of chicken-scratch numbers, and a little _x._

Angela smirks.

“I just do.”


End file.
